Debating a conspiracy theorist is like trying to debate a religious person. Don't bother.
The Kennedy-Nixon debates started off a whole trend in American politics - probably a bad one. Sure, Lincoln debated Douglas, and by all accounts, lost. Nixon won to people who listened on the radio, lost to people who saw him break a sweat and sit awkwardly on television (back then, television was not yet a universal thing, and I suspect most radio listeners were in rural areas, which also drove the difference in perception).
It is sad, but true, that the "winner" in a debate these days is the one who gets in the most "zingers" and sound-bites. Entertainers do well at this. Reagan is known best for "there you go again" and "I paid for this microphone!" I am willing to bet you can't remember the context in which these were said - what was actually being debated. I know I can't.
A reader writes taking issue with my previous posting where I characterized Joe Rogan listeners as teenage and 20-something incels. "I used to listen to Joe Rogan!" he says. But he grew out of it. Younger people are taken in by flashy "arguments" and "owning the libs" and nonsense like that. They believe the person who got in the most zingers "won" the debate and actual policy issues are irrelevant. So what if the "winner" cuts taxes for his wealthy friends and cuts health care for you? I mean, he "won" the debate fair-and-square, right?
Right?
Debating an anti-vaxxer, flat-earther, holocaust denier, UFO believer, conspiracy theorist, gold-bug,
or crypto-bro is pointless.
Why? You are arguing facts,
they are arguing beliefs. And belief, by its very nature, cannot be argued. It would be like trying to argue religion with a religious person - utterly pointless and you will never convince them of anything.
No matter what you say, they retreat to "Well, the {Bible, Torah, Qu'ran, etc.} says......" And then ends the debate in their mind. If you try to say these are mere books written by mortal humans with an agenda, they will shut you down. "No, no, the Bible was written by God!" they say. They themselves never read it.
In the case of the Qu'ran they will not debate you, but stone you to death. Why is this? (And historically, this has been true at one time or another, in every religion, from Judaism to Christianity to Scientology - heretics are not treated well!). Religious types know that their beliefs will not stand up to scrutiny with facts. So they just make challenging beliefs to be an off-limits topic, punishable in many cases with death - often excruciating death. You don't want the rest of the "faithful" to get ideas!
These various conspiracy theories are like religion - they ARE religion, as Qanonsense has shown. So it isn't a matter of "debating skills" (which Bob-Bob Kennedy doesn't have) but trying to argue against belief with facts. And facts always lose. Because those who are believers just make up their own facts - the "alternative facts" for example, of the Trump administration. You can't "debate" Trump (mostly because he refuses to do so) as he lives in a parallel universe of truthiness, where up is down and right is left and everything is a "witch-hunt" against him. He talks in nothing but sound-bites and zingers.
There are also those willing to "debate" in bad faith. (Trump tried to do this, but failed - which is why he prefers a venue with no opposition, either on-stage or in the audience). These are the folks who use misdirection and straw-man arguments, who use
whataboutism and
gish-gallop to distract and disseminate.
I have a "friend" who does this. He will always start arguments with lines like, "Well, you're a Democrat, you must think it is OK for transgender drag queens to groom children!" (Straw man argument). You try to point out that drag queens and transgender people are two different things, and neither are "grooming" children anymore than anyone else. It would be like saying "all priests are pedophiles." But before you can even say that, he's on to, "whatabout transgender restrooms? whatabout trans people in sports?" (whataboutism and gish-gallop). He has thrown out a number of issues here in rapid-fire, ascribed opinions to you that you don't hold, and has tried to get you to defend ideas you don't want to defend.
I am as mystified by the "drag queen story hour" as the next person, and I am not sure "gender identity" treatments or surgery for children under age 18 is a swell idea. In fact, it is a bad idea. But that isn't the real issue. The real issue is spreading hate and fear based on these beliefs. And every day, there is some anecdotal evidence to support such beliefs, such as a State legislator who is "trans" who had child porn on their phone. There you go again. See? They're all mentally ill and they're all groomers.
The problem with this sort of thinking is that it eventually leads to violence and in fact, already has. Women are being dragged from restrooms because they have short hair. Lesbians are being beaten up for using the "correct" restroom (again, because they don't look feminine). All these beliefs end up being an excuse for violence.
And by the way, before you say, "Well, whatabout..." I should note that many "trans activists" are using belief in place of facts as well - arguing that "gender dysphoria" should be treated in children lest they kill themselves, and thus it is "life-saving" surgery. As I noted in my previous posting, what "modern medicine" believes today is often viewed with horror only a decade later. And this rush to treat children with puberty-delaying drugs and hormones doesn't seem to have much of a track record. Medicine and science should not be a bandwagon. And real medicine and real science rarely is.
Quite frankly, I am beginning to wonder whether some of these more extreme beliefs in the transgender crowd are being fanned by outside forces. It helps the Republican Party to paint the Democrats as out-of-touch wacky liberals who want to change your child's sex. It certainly didn't help matters any when Biden invited a "trans" person to the White House and they promptly exposed themselves. Quite frankly, a lot of these efforts to be inclusive go overboard and backfire. Pride jerseys for hockey players? I didn't ask for that. I just want to be left alone - is that too much to ask? Apparently so.
But getting back to topic, this arguing of belief is nothing new, and like with religion, it is a technique used by people who have nothing really to say. It is a technique historically used by fascists of all stripes, be they Nazis or Communists - the bottom line being they are just people interested in accumulating power and nothing else and they will do anything to gain power.
As Jean-Paul Sartre famously put it:
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
The believers simply discard facts. And you can't "argue" with someone like that.
That's why no one with a brain would ever go on the Joe Rogan show. It is a set-up! Sadly, this means that the kind of people who listen to podcasts like that - or to Fox News, or OneAmerica or Inforwars, only hear what they want to hear - their beliefs. People don't like to have their beliefs challenged, so they tune to channels that mirror their beliefs. The lack of any other view is, in their minds, validation their beliefs are correct.
The only upside to all of this is those who rely on belief are usually short-lived. In the past, they were recruited as cannon-fodder (indeed, even today, in Russia) by the people who rely on facts. Today, they are willing to literally take their beliefs in horse medicine or anti-vaxxing to their graves. The only downside to this scheme is that they live long enough to reproduce.
So yet another generation is raised on belief, and the process repeats itself. Belief is evil, and if you want to get ahead in this world, you should profess to have beliefs (lest you be accused of heresy), but in your own mind, rely on facts.
And don't bother debating belief - there is no profit in it for you.
